Review: Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill

Readers tremble over your pages,
believe you spell out
letter by letter
the words of their hearts.

What’s your secret, Sylvia?
Are you the moon?
Or have you become bigger than that?
Are you the sun?

And I wonder,
who can possess the stuff of the sky?
                                                                          Can I?

 

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Sylvia Plath first gained recognition for her writing when she was just a small child. Her genius only grew, but like many brilliant artists she was a troubled soul.

This beautiful verse novel takes us from the very beginning to the very end of her life. The poetry switches perspective including Sylvia’s closest family members, her boyfriends, her teachers, and her husband. Intermittedly, Hemphill uses Sylvia’s own unique forms to fashion strong and evocative poems. Why is this book told through poetry? Poetry most effectively conveys the complex emotions of Sylvia and the people in her life–be prepared to laugh, to cringe, and to cry. This is a fitting tribute for the woman who gave us such grand works as The Colossus and Other Poems, Ariel, and The Bell Jar. 

Review: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

“There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care. All the secrets in the world worth knowing are hiding in plain sight.” 

Clay Jannon’s skyrocketing career nosedives when the Great Recession hits. Out of desperation he takes the night shift at a mysterious bookstore run by the enigmatic Mr. Penumbra. Strange customers come and borrow strange, beautiful books Clay has never even heard of. Something important is happening at Mr. Penumbra’s run-down bookstore and Clay is determined to find out what. Using all his resources–including the entire Google complex, an anonymous hacker, his millionaire nerdy best friend, and his own ingenuity–Clay delves into the world of ancient cult societies and literary secrets.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore won an Alex Award a few years ago. The Alex Awards are given to books published originally for adults that have teen appeal. Although all the characters in this book are in their mid-twenties (or much older) teen readers may relate to their humor and worries about jobs, the economy, their friends, romantic relationships, and the future in general. As a narrator Clay is engaging and funny—never pretentious and always curious. This book makes the print books versus eReaders debate irrelevant by showing how fluidly the two mediums work together for modern generations. It is crack for tech junkies and bibliophiles alike. Most importantly, no matter who you are, it makes you wonder about the secrets of the universe.

5/5 Stars

Review: John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth by Elizabeth Partridge

All John Winston Ono Lennon wanted was the truth and that’s what Elizabeth Partridge tries to deliver. She doesn’t shy away from the ugly aspects of Lennon’s life and character, but she doesn’t neglect his triumphs and virtues. This compelling biography paints Lennon as a paradox–someone who publicly advocates peace and privately beats his wife, someone who is fiercely independent and shockingly needy. He is the dark, the edge, the grit of The Beatles. Partridge unfolds his troublesome childhood, his hotheaded adolescence, his experience with Beatlemania, his relationship with Yoko Ono, and his move into politics. Yet throughout each distinct stage of Lennon’s life, Partridge shows how Lennon was always a man struggling to find an identity, and striving to be loved.

John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth is interspersed with amazing photos, and brilliant (often filthy) quotes from Lennon and the important people of his life. Partridge’s research relied most heavily on the memoirs of those who remembered Lennon as well as some personal interviews. The complexities and realities of Lennon’s life (including drugs, death, and foul-language) lends his biography to an older teen audience.

Beatles and Lennon fans rejoice and read this book!

5/5 Stars

Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

Blue has been told her entire life by her psychic family that when she kisses her true love he will die. Then, on a haunted evening Blue sees his specter and hears his voice. She will find her true love this year and he will most likely die. Meanwhile in a the same town, four boys attending the local posh boarding school, Aglionby, are on a quest to discover a magically sleeping Welsh king hidden somewhere in the mountains. Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah are extremely different and each hordes their own secrets. When the group comes slamming into Blue’s life, she is caught off guard and pulled into the search for Glyndwr the sleeping king. But they are not the only people looking for the king and the power that will belong to whoever wakes him up…

Perhaps the easiest way to describe this book is that reading it is a consuming experience. Steifvater’s lyrical writing wraps your brain in a magical and mysterious fog that you won’t want to shake off. Steifvater is more concerned with how the words feel to the reader  than making clear what exactly just happened in the story. Moreover, while the story in The Raven Boys is interesting, the characters and their relationships with each other make this a stand out novel. Blue, each Raven Boy, and the members of Blue’s family are complex and nuanced. How they interact with each other with wickedly clever, fast-paced dialogue is even more so. Fans of fantasy and contemporary realism will each find things to love about this book!

5/5 Stars

Review: The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider

“Sometimes I think that everyone has a tragedy waiting for them, that the people buying milk in their pajamas or picking their noses at stoplights could be only moments away from disaster. That everyone’s life, no matter how unremarkable, has a moment when it will become extraordinary–a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen.”

After a car crash leaves Ezra Faulkner seriously injured, he begins to reevaluate how he lived his life and the people he previously filled it with. Replacing jocks with nerdfighters for friends and a Regina George girlfriend with a manic pixie dream girl, Ezra begins to attempt a new way of living that involves more laughter, debate, Foucault, sarcasm, and leather jackets. His new girlfriend, Cassidy Thorpe, is unlike any girl he has ever met before and although their relationship feels perfect things are not always what they seem. Ezra’s and Cassidy’s tragedies are complicated in unexpected and extraordinary ways.

Robyn Scheider masters the teenage voice authors like John Green, E. Lockhart, David Levithan, and Rachel Cohn have made popular. That mix of hyper-intelligent wit with vulnerability, raunchy humor,  angst, and pop culture references will entertain readers and make them fall in love with Ezra. The plot is at times predictable and slow, but the banter between characters, especially fully-developed secondary characters, will keep readers turning the page wanting more. Contemporary references to YA literature (Harry Potter!) and music will prevent this book from aging gracefully, but for now…emotional and funny, The Beginning of Everything, is worth a read.

4/5 Stars